Here's one way to deal with a newspaper scandal: close the whole damn newspaper. James Murdoch—Rupert Murdoch's son and the head of News International, the News Corp division that publishes the British tabloid News of the World—just announced that NotW will publish its final edition this weekend.

This is brilliant. The NotW phone hacking scandal was growing worse by the day; advertisers were fleeing; and the cry for a sacrificial lamb was becoming too strong to be ignored. But, as we pointed out yesterday, Rupert Murdoch is not the type to give into public pressure. News Corp notoriously does not give a fuck what the self-appointed protectors of morality and ethics in business and journalism think.

But this scandal was rapidly getting out of control; it was imperiling business prospects for the entire company. So what to do? Cut your losses. Fold the paper. Wash your hands of the whole ordeal. You can expect News Corp's rhetoric about "moving on" to start today. And that's how you get out of a scandal with all the top executives' jobs intact.